Trip Reports

Hello whalewatchers: We have great weather today with very light winds and calm seas. We have been busy watching humpback whales, bottlenose dolphins and loads of sea turtles. We are sure we are seeing green and loggerhead turtles, and while we were drifting we noticed all the salps in the water which are food for the turtles. We came across a lot of birds on the water and when we got close, we realized they were all northern fulmars with all three phases present: dark, intermediate and light. This is something we don’t see very often….always something new to experience on these trips!
Today’s picture is of a  pair of humpbacks and a bottlenose dolphin in the same frame.
More later, Team Searcher

Evening addition: What a day we have had–plenty of wildlife to look at today! Humpbacks, blues, and fin whales along with bottlenose dolphin, lots of turtles, a few sunfish, northern fulmars, frigate birds, tropic birds, shearwaters…all in one day. The blue and fin whales were feeding on the surface and a wonderful sunset to finish the day. Oh, and the weather was awesome. Looking forward to tomorrow.
Team Searcher

Hello whalewatchers: We had a geat day with plenty of close encounters for everyone. We also had great weather with light winds from 11am until we left the lagoon. Currently we have good travelling weather. The galley is buzzing with chatter from all about the day’s events–it was a very active day all around. The beach was wonderful as well. There’s something about being the only visitors on the beach. It is very special. Today’s picture is of the great sunset.
More tomorrow, Team Searcher

Hello whalewatchers: Our midday report from Laguna San Ignacio has much better weather to start the day today. Last night we had a wonderful “lights out” time–lots of stars and Jupiter and its moons. The whales are very active this morning with lots of breaching and mating behavior. Today’s picture is of an adult breaching just off the bow.
More later, Team Searcher

Hello whalewatchers: It’s midday in Laguna San Ignacio and we are enjoying multiple gray whales around the Searcher. Luckily the wind has diminished at lunch time. We had difficult conditions upon arrival but not enough to impact the first panga trip. It’s great to be back in this special place. There are a lot of gray whales here now. More than last trip even.
More later, Team Searcher

Hello whalewatchers: We had a blustery day at Islas San Benito. The island is still in bloom and the beaches appear to be full of elephant seals. I took my usual walk up to both lighthouses–the decomissioned one and the new one at the top of the island. Today’s picture is of the old historic lighthouse with Fresnel lens in it. Unfortunately the building is deteriorating but the lens is in good shape. A goal of ours is to someday propose a joint venture with the Mexican government to have the old lighthouse restored. It is just in the idea stage but we are hopeful.
We finished our day with some whalewatching east of San Benito. The conditions weren’t the greatest but we got a good look at a few fin whales, and the grand finale was a juvenile blue whale half that was breaching and lunging and travelling at a pretty good rate of speed. We had some good looks in the binoculars at a distance. There was a tremendous amount of life with hundreds of Cassin’s auklets, gulls and shearwaters as well. Oh I almost forgot the peregrine falcon that was divebombing on Cassin’s auklets off the bow. Everyone enjoyed the island.
More tomorrow, Team Searcher

Hello whalewatchers: We started our day with a group of long-beaked common dolphins on our way to Islas Todos Santos. At the island we saw the brown pelicans in full breeding plumage and hundreds of birds in the colony on the island. There were seven female northern elephant seals with pups and a single male on the beach, with a few harbor seals as well. We saw California sea lions on the rocks off the island. The peregrine falcon was in the usual spot on the highest point on the island. We did see one pelagic commorant in flight.
After leaving the island it didn’t take long to see our first whale–a single humpback. A little further south we saw a trio of gray whales heading south and we had great looks at them. We came across a group of 5 or 6 gray whales that appeared to be headed north but we weren’t sure of that. We had a change in the conditions with some northwest wind and swell so it made it hard to follow them. The wind increased throughout the day but we did see 7 Laysan albatrosses and lots of shearwaters and fulmars. We can’t forget the Scripps’ murrelets sitting on the water.
More tomorrow, Team Searcher

They’ve had a busy morning already with sightings of gray whales, humpback whales, laysan albatross and other seabirds, but they have some wind this afternoon and are going to keep heading south, down wind for a more comfortable ride. All is well with passengers and crew…a more full report will follow this evening!

They are currently enjoying Risso’s dolphins this morning, and that adds up to 12 species of cetaceans in one trip! Let’s see if they can add another this afternoon for a baker’s dozen.

Dear whalewatchers; Another fantastic day today! We had a great walk at Bahia Agua Verde after a calm night on the anchor there. Lots of different birds to look at with the highlight being a vermillion flycatcher. After leaving the bay we came across another species of balleen whale–a minke. We just keep adding to the cetacean list each day. We travelled for awhile and came upon another big blue whale for a few looks and decided to get back down to the area where we were two days ago. we were rewarded by multiple sperm whales on the surface. No telling how many but there were quite a few. The crew did a great job again spotting these whales from along way away. We bypassed a breaching humpback and a group of pilot whales to get close to the sperm whales while they were on the surface. We stayed with these whales for at least 2 hours. It was awesome!

The crew saw more spouts further south in the San Jose channel and so we went towards them and we came across a group of five sperm whales on the surface we stayed until they dove and saw three flukes at once. Could it get any better? Not sure how.
Our last sighting has been a humpback feeding with a few bottlenose dolphin joining in.
What an incredible day. We are finishing it off with margaritas and a buffet on the back deck. Party time! Team Searcher

Hello whalewatchers: What a great day! The island was great! The weather is fantastic! We left the island and the first whale we saw was sperm whale. It was a single male that was on the surface for a long time. We waited for it to resurface and unfortunately we had to wait for 50 minutes and then we had to travel 3 miles to get close to the area. The whale was down again for another 50 minutes and we only had to travel 2 miles to get close and I think everyone got a view in the binoculars or the telephoto lens. We elected to continue on and see what the rest of the afternoon would bring. We found lots of bird life with dolphins and a couple of small humpbacks. We were close to Isla Monserate in the area that we traditionally see lots of life.
One humpback  lunged through the bait ball with the pelicans, boobies, gulls and dolphins were feeding on. Quite a sight!
Today’s picture is from the island–the famous (practically) endemic yellow-footed gull.
Team Searcher